Last Donderdag Meppeldag for 2009 - Theme: Spain

Meppel Travel Blog

This was the Donderdag Meppeldag which I had been looking forward to the most. The theme was one I really liked, first of all because I visited Spain for the first time this year and really loved it. Secondly it was a new theme and most of the other themes had been repeated quite a few times. So expecting a lot of this one I finally had the girls ready to go ito town by late morning and we walked to the end of our street where we had an encounter with Donqzot.

Donqzot consists of two guys and their horse and donkey (not real), and they tell the story of Don Quichot in there own special way. They were very entertaining and included a lot of the spectators which was nice too. After watching them for a while we walked on into the city centre which was packed! The weather was quite nice (although definitely not Spaninsh temperatures) so this had brought out quite a few people.

Donqzot

Our next stop was De Wheem, one of the squares which was completely covered in sand and had lounge chairs and palm trees everywhere just for this occasion. Here we saw Ole Comedy perform, a duo who play Spanish music and dance, but combine this with a comedy act. Again the people watching were included in the act and it was very funny. After their performance we hung around a little while until Ritmos Calientes, a Spanish band with two flamenco dancers. We watched them for a little while and then walked to the Groenmarkt, where we saw some beginner flamenco dansers give a demonstration.

When we got to het Kerkplein we caught the end of a show given by Club Guarana, which I really enjoyed. I decided to stop and have a late lunch at Ristorante Sardinia.

De Wheem

I opted for a simple "pane et pesto", bread with garlic butter and different types of pesto (or tapenade depending on where you're from). That and a glass of red went down very nicely! The girls had a drink and shared some of the bread with me. Jordan accidentally knocked over her drink and she was given a new one free of charge straight away!

We decided to go home shortly after this as I still had to do some shopping and the girls wanted to play with their friends. After dinner we watched the parade which goes past the end of our street. The girls watched the whole thing but I wanted to get ready to go out later. I had arranged for a babysitter to come so I was back in town just after 9pm. The live music was officially supposed to start at 9pm but some bands were a little late so I ended up at the Stoombootkade for a while listening to a rock band, "666 The Nightmare". Not exactly Spanish but not too bad. From there I went to the Groenmarkt where I enjoyed the sounds of a cover band named Pump It Up. Again not very Spanish and I wish the organising committee would stick more to the theme in the evenings as well. Two of the other squares had DJ's only and the live music is definitely more fun than that!